Haunted House
by Cadmium Poisoning
Summary: 12-year-old Light Yagami gets locked into an abandoned house by a friend. There he meets someone who then suddenly disappears and leaves Light wondering if he imagined it all. L-Light friendship
1. Chapter 1

A/N: COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY BACKROUND DATA: Mello is, in this story, two years younger than Light. He started school one year earlier than other kids and then skipped one grade. Near is three years younger. He started school the same age as everyone else and skipped three grades, thus ending up in the same year as Light and Mello. Light could've skipped years too but he played a martyr and told the principal that he thought it would be arrogant to think he knew it all and then skip. So, he didn't and those three are in the same class.

I was inspired by many different stories here, two especially. If you want to know which, ask me in a review: I do not want those writers to be associated with my way less awesome work.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or any of the characters.

PART ONE: CLOSED SPACES

A 12-year-old boy called Light Yagami was standing in the middle of a huge, unfurnished room. Exactly in the middle. He had calculated that the walls behind and in front of him were both about 2 metres away and the walls on his left and right were 3 metres away. He turned around for the 27th time to make sure that he hadn't moved away from the center, gave a heavy sigh and sat down. Still trying to keep things symmetric, he pulled his knees up and put his hands around them. Had anyone been looking down from the ceiling, he would have seen an almost perfectly square-shaped object in the middle of an empty room.

Exactly in the middle.

Light was scared out of his mind, and trying to forget it.

"Damn it!" He said aloud, and then caught himself. It would not do for his image as a genius if someone caught him talking to himself. Or freaking out over the fact that he was alone in a locked room. Alone in a place where, if the amount of dust was anything to go by, no one had been for at least ten or twenty years. And the door behind him was locked. The door was locked, the only window was a tiny little square very close to the ceiling and the walls were closing in, he was sure, they were creeping closer and he would run out of air and his body would be crushed and no one would ever find him and-

He bit his lip _hard_ and stopped thinking. Instead, he turned his head to the ceiling and started counting the panels on it.

Light had always been a quiet, clever boy who did not like to socialize with people of his age. He had a few friends at school but he wasn't too close with them. Light's parents were worried. _Those idiots, _Light thought. They couldn't scold him for not cleaning his room (which Light always did with great care and perfectionism) or doing badly at school (Light always had perfect grades of every subject) so they just _had to _whine about his social life.

And that was exactly how he had ended up in an abandoned house in the middle of a night.

When Light's mother had broken her ankle and ended up in hospital, Light's father had come to pick the boy up from school so they could go see her. Unfortunately for Light, Soichiroo Yagami had a superhuman sense of hearing when it came to things he could annoy his son with. When he had come to the classroom, one of the kids Light was friends with had been planning a "Super Awesome Midnight Expedition to a Mega Scary Local Haunted House". Yay. Anyway, Soichiroo had heard him and immediately told him that Light had his permission to go with them. Not that he had Light's permission to tell anyone Light would be going, but, well, since Soichiroo seemed to be obsessed with the damn trip and Light had already been told to "Spend more time with friends or else", Light had accepted his fate and joined the expedition.

_Damn them all!_ Light was now _in_ the haunted house. He had gone with the rest of the kids, even though he had been absolutely terrified by the amount of dust everywhere in the house (_Goddamnit, if I wake up tomorrow coughing my lungs out, I'll send my hospital bills to your parents!)_. Then one brat Light especially disliked had decided to play a prank on him. This hellchild, Mello, had told Light to go check out the empty room to see if he had dropped his keys there and had then slammed the door shut behind him.

Light had only just avoided hyperventilating when he had been told by the second most annoying brat in his school, Near, that the door was locked and they couldn't find the key. So, while the other kids had gone to get Light's police dad to help them, Light was stuck in a big, empty room that was likely to give him asthma or fungal pneumonia or some other disease he didn't want.

He was so not going anywhere with the class retards ever again.

The room was too quiet. Light could hear his own slightly irregular breathing and almost nothing else. Even though he usually found silence calming, it was now making him paranoid: every creak, every rattle, every sound he registered seemed mortifying. Just as Light had finished counting the panels fourth time, he heard a sound that scared him so much he jumped to his feet, abandoning his obsession for symmetry. The tiny window three metres above his head creaked open.

_This can't be..._ Light thought. How the hell had someone managed to climb up to the window, and more importantly, who was it? A slender-looking hand pushed the glass panel into room, letting in some cold, fresh air. Another, similar hand appeared and the intruder rested his elbows on the windowsill. He leaned in and pushed his head through the window. Large, black eyes stared into the room and then focused on the panic-stricken Light. The person waited a moment, but then, since Light seemed to be too scared to make a sound, he asked in a monotonous voice: "What are you doing in my room?" As he spoke, he put his thumb in his mouth and started chewing on it.

Light had lost his voice momentarily before, but now he snapped back to normal. "This is your room? It's an abandoned house! No one's lived here for at least ten years!" Light's all-knowing tone was answered with a slightly tired one.

"Well, perhaps I have not _really_ been here for a while, but I used to live here with my, err, grandfather and he still owns the house, so, because of that, and by a force of habit, I still call this my room." Light thought the intruder - well, Light probably was the real intruder now - stressed the word _really_ somehow oddly, but he decided not to comment on it. "However, you have not answered why you are here."

"Oh! I'm sorry for coming here without permission", Light said, expecting the owl-eyed person to scold him for invading other people's homes. "Some of my friends at school wanted to came take a look at this place because there's a rumour that this house is haunted, and, um, I was forced to tag along." Light paused for a tiny moment and the man at the window interrupted him: "I see. So, I suspect you do not believe this house is haunted?"

"Of course not! Ghosts don't exist", Light answered immediately. How old did this guy think he was, six? "I see", the man said again and adjusted his position at the window a little, and leaned more inside as if to see better. The light of street lamps from outside had dimmed Light's vision of the man a bit earlier, but now he could see that he was actually quite young (_Twenty years old? Or even younger?_) and that he had incredibly wild, messy black hair. "So, what happened then? Why aren't your friends here anymore?"

"Well, I got locked in this room and they left to get help." Light was a little taken aback when he said that. He had actually forgotten about his claustrophobia for almost five minutes. "Speaking of which, do you think you could get me out of here?" The messy-haired man let his thumb fall from his mouth, apparently deep in thought. "I'm afraid my grandfather has the all the keys, and I would rather not try break the door. I do not believe I would be strong enough - in fact, there is a 78 per cent chance I would fail." He pushed himself off the window, and Light was confused and scared. Where was the man going? Was he just going to leave him there? Then his head appeared in the window again.

"Are you any good at climbing?"

"What do you mean? Climbing up the straight wall to that window?" Light burst out. "Please do not be so sarcastic. Coming from a child of your age it sounds so morbid", the man sighed and explained, "There is a long rope under the tree I'm at. If I threw you that rope and tied the other end to the tree, would you be able to climb up?" _Well, I have done pretty well in PE, _Light thought and said, "I could try, if you can tie that rope well..." The man nodded, and disappeared again.

Light looked around the room. All the other rooms in the house had been furnished - only this one was completely empty. And yet the strange man had claimed this room was his. Had he moved away and taken everything with him? Actually, why _were_ the other rooms furnished? No one had lived in those, either, for some ten years at least. Why hadn't the owner taken the furniture with him? And why had the house been empty for so long?

Light's thought process was interrupted by a heavy rope falling from the window. The man pushed his head through the window again and said: "Start climbing. I have tied it quite well." Light tested the rope, and started carefully climbing up. On his first attempt he fell back onto his feet, but then he tried again. He put his feet on the wall, and ignored the burning feeling in his palms. Slowly, he crept up closer and closer to the man leaning on the window. He didn't dare to look down even once; he didn't particularly fear heights, but if he fell from there... He couldn't think further. Suddenly, climbing up felt like a stupid idea. He should have just stayed down and fought his claustrophobia. Too late now.

"You are doing well. Don't panic, don't let go, just keep strong", the man told him. He didn't seem to have enough common sense to offer his hand to Light, though - he was leaning on one and chewing on the other.

Finally, just as Light had thought he wouldn't be able to go on anymore, his hand found the windowsill. Startled by the discovery, Light let his grasp slip a bit and was just about to fall as the window-man's long fingers grasped his wrist out of nowhere. He pulled Light up so he could get out through the window.

-----

Cliffhangeeer!!!

If you review, I'll write more and you'll get to know what happens next. Though, to crush all false hopes you may/may not have, I need to tell you that writing even just this chapter has taken me a good 4 months. It might- screw that, will take long for me to update. I hope you still review anyway... It cheers me up, and I write faster when I'm happy.

...If there are any angry fans of Freudian Slip out there, I am working on the new chapter, I'm just slow *sweatdrop*


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I really am so sorry for the huge delay. I was... Stressed? A lowsy excuse, I know, but it's true. So: here's the newest chapter, hope you like it, and thanks to all my reviewers from before. A special thanks to DarkAngelJudas.

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or any of the characters.

PART TWO: DISAPPEARANCE

The first thing Light noticed when he stepped on the tree branch was that it was extremely thin.

"Ah!" he yelled, desperately clinging to the strange man's arm. The man steadied him and half-dragged him away from the branch and down, to the solid ground under the tree. The whole climb down Light shivered in panic.

Once on ground and breathing a bit more regularly, Light yelled at the man, "WHAT THE HELL? That branch was nowhere near big enough to support both our weight! It should have broken under just your weight alone! Why the hell did you invite me up when you knew-"

"I knew it would not break", the man interrupted, calm and convincing. Not convincing enough to convince Light, though. "Are you kidding me?! That branch-", Light pointed up in its general direction, "-was so gonna break..." Light suddenly became quiet as he realized that the branch had shown no sign that it was going to break. "Why the hell did it not break?" The strange man shrugged. "I'm not as heavy as I look like."

The scowl instantly returned to Light's face. The man didn't look heavy at all. With his skinny arms and pale face, he looked more like he hadn't had a warm meal in months. But Light had seen how thin the branch had been with his own eyes. He had climbed some trees as a kid - well, he still was a kid, but when he had been younger and crazier - and he knew he was right. Logically, the two of them should be lying on the ground with several broken limbs. No, logically he should still be in the empty room and the stranger would be in agony.

_I wouldn't really mind him being in pain right now, but the part about me being in that room isn't really tempting. But how does this guy defy my impeccable logic, and gravity?_ Light didn't like puzzles he couldn't solve, and was still angry that the man had led him to such a dangerous place. Meanwhile, the object of Light's venomous glare was running a hand through his hair, making it even messier than before.

"Who are you? You never introduced yourself." Light remarked. "Neither did you", the man said, staring Light with unblinking eyes. "You may call me Ryuuzaki."

"That's hardly your real name, is it?" Light asked. The man shrugged and said nothing. "Well, I'm Light Yagami", Light said, only now remembering his manners. The man nodded and asked, "So, can I call you Light-kun then?" Light nodded. They were silent for a while, sitting under the tree and thinking.

"Ryuuzaki-san? Why were you here this night, especially why were you at the window?" Light asked, suspicious as ever. Ryuuzaki stared at the boy, unblinking, and after a few seconds of silence he answered, "Taking a look at my old room."

"In the middle of the night, from a tree branch?!" Light didn't know if he should, A: believe the man and decide that he was a complete moron for not realizing that the branch was deadly thin (and Light still was convinced of that) or B: accuse him of lying.

"It is nowhere near midnight yet, Light-kun. Maybe you assume so because you are so young, and used to going to bed early."

No. Light should choose option C: hate the man's guts and not care whether he was an idiot or a suicidal idiot. "I'm NOT a little kid! It's just- well, dark! And besides, you look like YOU should be the one going to bed early!" Ryuuzaki-san still didn't blink. He simply held Light's gaze and asked "How so?" Light stared at the dark rings around Ryuuzaki's eyes for a few seconds and then sighed. "Never mind."

Another uncomfortable silence fell, though Ryuuzaki didn't look uncomfortable at all. He simply chewed on his thumbnail and stared at the dark sky, as if lost in thought. Light only realized that he had become lost his thoughts too when Ryuuzaki spoke again.

"Will your friends be back soon?" He asked in his monotone voice. "Err... Probably. I've lost track of time", Light answered, feeling a little stupid now. Ryuuzaki just nodded, and continued, "You said they were going to get help. From who?" Light was a little bit nervous about the urgency of the question. _What if this guy is a kidnapper or something, and he's trying to find out exatcly how many people know where I am?_

"My dad. He's a police officer", Light answered, hoping the police part of his answer would scare the man away if he was a criminal. Ryuuzaki stared at Light for a bit and then said "There is a sixty-nine percent chance that Light-kun thinks something very unpleasant of me." _Okay, the guy has some mind-reading powers. That only serves to make him seem more creepy._ "N-no, of course not, Ryuuzaki-san..." Light said, trying to look apologetic in case Ryuuzaki-san (_He gave me an alias, too! What kind of a normal person would do that!) _really was a kidnapper or a homicidal maniac.

Ryuuzaki stared at Light again for a while, and then said "Light-kun really doesn't need to be afraid of me. I am not a criminal. In fact, I have worked with the police to catch criminals myself." Now this made Light curious. "What do you mean 'worked with the police'?" _Was this guy, like, a mob informant or something? _

"I was a detective." Ryuuzaki said. _What the-_ "There's no way you're old enough to be that!" Light burst out. Ryuuzaki SMILED - a creepy, owlish smile that made Light flinch. "I see you have got over your shyness towards me. That is good. But I can assure you, I did not lie when I said I used to be a detective. I solved my last case here in Japan, before my- err... Before I left that career." Ryuuzaki finished. Light was sure he had meant to say something else completely, but did not push it. _He's lying anyway, he's just having hard time coming up with the story fast enough._ "So what was your last case?" Light assumed he could trap Ryuuzaki into saying something stupid if he kept asking for details.

The man stared at Light for moment. "That I am not willing to tell you. You are too young to hear." _Hah! I knew it. Liar._ "But I solved another case before that, that one also in Japan. Would you like to hear?" Light nodded, surprised. "It was the Yotsuba embezzlement case."

_HA! Now I got him! _Light thought, but only said, "My dad was on that case too! He told me a lot about it at home." Ryuuzaki bit his thumbnail and said flatly, "How unprofessional." For the third time that night, Light wanted to punch the man. "AFTER IT ENDED, of course! And that's just because I want to be in police too when I grow up!" Ryuuzaki's already incredibly large eyes widened lightly in curiousity. "Oh? That explains it then."

"So... What did you do on the case?" Light asked, his anger settling down. "I was given the files of 150 Yotsuba workers who were in the right position to steal the amount of money disappearing monthly", Ryuuzaki started, chewed on his lip a bit and then continued, "The sum was 500,000 yen once month, always different days and times of day, and always to different bank accounts of different banks all around the world. Usually, by the time the police managed to track down where the money had gone to, someone had already collected the money." Ryuuzaki paused for air.

"After the police recognised the pattern in the crimes, the police managed to warn the banks a few times and tell them they were not to give the money away. Still, they could not track down the owner of the bank accounts. It always turned out that they belonged to ordinary citizens of whatever country the money had been sent to. It seemed that these people had had their IDs stolen some time before the crime." Ryuuzaki chewed on his nails again while Light still listened intently.

"Then we - myself and the police in collaboration - noticed that if we went through the histories of these "ordinary citizens" very carefully, they were all linked to a certain Yotsuba worker, Kyosuke Higuchi. It turned out we had been searching pointlessly for a worker of Yotsuba who travelled a lot, and his accomplice who did some of the trips for him. In reality, there were over 20 people involved in the case, either waiting for their turn to receive money, or already done with their part of the crime and just waiting for the case to end so they could start safely spending their 60% of the money they had received - the rest they had sent to Higuchi's secret bank account in Japan. That is the story." Ryuuzaki said, eyeing Light carefully.

Light, who had been completely focused on the story, only woke to reality when Ryuuzaki had stopped talking. He was rather stunned; the man had managed to retell the crime very convincingly, but none of this proved that he had been the one to solve the crime himself, or that he had even met with the police then. When Light voiced this thought, Ryuuzaki stared at him a few seconds again and answered, "I do not see why I need to convince you. But, then again, if you want to satisfy your obvious curiousity of me, ask your father (if he really worked on this case) who it was who first realized that one of Higuchi's helpers was connected to Higuchi. The man was Kanzo Mogi, and he told us this in the investigation headquarters June 12th over two years ago, two weeks and three days before Higuchi was arrested."

Light stared at the man. No one would make such claim if they knew he could prove them wrong. As Light continued to stare, Ryuuzaki opened his mouth and said, "Ah, but your name was Yagami? Then your father would be-"

"LIIIGHT!" Light turned his head to the direction of the sound and saw Soichiro Yagami running up the hill like a raging bull. "Over here!" Light yelled. When his father noticed him, Light turned to Ryuuzaki to introduce his father to him - only to find him gone without a trace. He looked around, trying to locate the strange man, but was unable to. Ryuuzaki had disappeared like he had never been there.

"Light! Oh, thank goodness you're okay! I was afraid." Light turned to his father. "Hey, dad." Soichiro sighed heavily. "Hey, son", he paused, breathing heavily before he realized something wasn't right. "How did you get out of there? The other kids told me you were locked in."

"Oh! Right. Someone let me out. He was here until just a moment ago", Light turned around, glaring at the tree as if it had swallowed Ryuuzaki and left him in a difficult position. Soichiro coughed a little, and said then, "Well, that's good. Who was he? Was he a nice person?" Light knew what his father really wanted to ask was "Was he a pervert, a creep or some kind of criminal maybe?"

"I guess he was okay. We talked a little bit, and then he left." Soichiro muttered something that sounded like "Inexcusable to leave my son alone outside at this hour", but then patted Light's head and said they should go home.

------

Gaaah my fingers are numb. I've done too much writing today~! -.-

Thank you so much for reading! Reviews are always appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

Warning: I enjoy humiliating serious characters.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

PART THREE: CURIOUSITY

Light walked the steps downstairs from his room. He looked into the kitchen to see his father eating breakfast alone and decided to seize the chance.

"Good morning, dad." Light said, taking a can of juice out of the fridge and pouring himself some.

"Good morning, Light. Are you okay?" The boy sighed. He had wanted to question his father about the Yotsuba case yesterday already, but then they had come home and his mother had fussed over him non-stop (while his father had happily joined her in doing so).

"I'm fine, dad. No need to ask for the 250th time."

"Why not? It's a pretty, even number", Light's sister Sayu pointed out, walking past them on her way to the TV. Light scowled at her, but she didn't notice because her back was turned to him. Having made sure his sister was immersed in the syrupy romance anime she was watching, Light sat down at the table and turned to look at his father.

"Ermm, dad?" Soichiro's eyes immediately fixed upon him. "What is it, Light? Is there something you need? I can go get it for you, if you want something from the fridge-"

"Dad! I just got locked inside a house, I did not fall from a tree and break all my limbs." _Though it did came much too close to my liking._ "I... just have a question. I've been wondering about the Yotsuba embezzlement case..." The boy trailed off, not knowing how to continue.

"That old case? Why?" Soichiro asked, curious. "Well, I dunno... I just thought it was a very interesting case... I was wondering, who was it who first figured that those people who helped Higuchi were connected to him?" Light asked, rather direct. His father frowned thoughtfully, as if he didn't quite remember.

"Well, there was that d- I mean- I mean a person from the task force- who insisted that we went through the files of each person very carefully. We didn't really trust him, because he was- well, you could say he was new. But, err, either way, Mogi-kun offered to look through the files himself, and since he was known to be able to finish gigantic amounts of paperwork in ridiculously little time, we thought nothing of it." Soichiro rubbed his chin, slightly embarrassed at having to admit to his son that he hadn't thought such a vital point important at the time. The said son's eyes were gleaming with obvious interest and perhaps a little shock. "And then?"

"Well, Mogi started check them through, going as far as to look into their backrounds and get all information he could get, even the classified and the confidential kind. And, well, things soon started to clear out, because one by one he found that they were all connected to Higuchi in some subtle way. After that, it didn't take much more than two weeks before the man was arrested." Soichiro took a sip of his coffee. Light's little head was swimming.

"So who was that guy who told you to inspect all those personal files? Does he work with you anymore?" He asked, kind of frustrated that his father had never told him about that person. _Ryuuzaki_, Light already assumed. Soichiro avoided his son's eager eyes and stared into his coffee mug. "His identity... I cannot really give you, because he only communicated with us through a computer. You could say that he was a foreign consultant."

"But surely he gave you some name? Otherwise you wouldn't have taken orders from him!" Light insisted. Soichiro looked the boy in the eye and said in a very final tone: "His involvement in the case is classified information, only known by the higher-ups and the task force itself. He did not wish to be associated with the case, and it would be a very poor way of thanking him for the great favours he did to us all throughout the case, that I would tell you now who he was. I hope you understand that."

Light nodded obediently, realizing that his father had already very nearly broken his promise to the person (_Ryuuzaki!)_ by telling Light of him. "I won't tell anyone, dad. Thanks for answering me." Soichiro reached out to ruffle his hair and smiled. "Good boy." Light left for his Sunday tennis lesson soon after, and was too busy the whole day to think about Ryuuzaki's mystery. Other than a few tired thoughts before sleep took over him that evening, his day had passed without one good moment to think.

Next day turned out to be entirely different. After breakfast, Light walked to school alone, immersed in his ideas about Ryuuzaki. Rather than wondering if the man's story had been true or not, because he was completely convinced that it was, he had skipped straight into evaluating Ryuuzaki's way of dealing with the case. _Sure, dad said he had - what was it now - "done great favours to them all throughout the case", but in the real conclusion he seems to have done very little. I mean, he was the one who told them to go over the files, but the real discoveries were made by Mogi-san. Maybe, _Light thought, frowning_, Maybe he had managed to stop the money transitions a few times? The police was heavily criticized for not being able to do anything then, but their reputation was somewhat restored when they managed to interfere with those. I don't know, I guess I'll have to go ask him mys-_

**SMACK!**

"Ah, I'm so sorry!" Light apologized and politely bowed to the man he had walked into.

In school, the twelve-year-old still couldn't concentrate on what was going on. Being a well-known genius, it didn't mean that much to him to not focus during Math or Biology, but it did cost him during the English class - not because he didn't do well in that subject, but because the teacher (an old man called Wammy) hated him.

_I wonder who he is... To get the police to listen to his requests, Ryuuzaki has to be someone VERY important. So, who is he?_, Light wondered silently, but suddenly snapped out of it at new voice. "Yagami! What is the answer?" Wammy yelled from the front of the classroom. The boy, who hadn't been following the class at all, asked: "What was the question again?" The look on Wammy-sensei's face darkened, and Light deduced the day was not going to end well.

"Aww! Wammy-sensei was so unfair to you~!" Misa, a blonde girl from neighouring class whined during lunch break. "He didn't need to give you extra work for just spacing out! By the way, Light-kun, are you okay? If you still feel bad, I can help you..." The girl looked up at Light through her mascara-ed eyelashes. Kiyomi, another girl sitting in the same table with them, decided to interrupt: "What could you do? If Light-kun feels bad, then he should go to nurse's office, where I could take him to!"

Light inwardly sighed as the girls kept bickering. _How did they come to the conclusion that I'm sick? I just spaced out, that's all..._ Misa and Kiyomi both had a major crush on Light; Misa (who was actually a year older) even insisted that the reason she had gone to the second grade twice was so that she could be in the same year as Light (though she didn't manage to get to the same class as Light, much to her disappointment, Light's relief and Kiyomi's unhidden joy).

"Umm, Kiyomi-chan, Misa-chan?" Light decided to end the argument, "I am not feeling ill... so let's not fight, okay?" The girls sat down again, glaring at each other. Light sighed on the inside again, for he feared that if he sighed for real the girls would take it to be a sign of an illness. "Nee, Light-kun?" Misa asked in a totally not-innocent voice. "How was it like at the haunted house Saturday? Was it scary?" The boy shook his head, lying: "No, of course not. I don't believe in ghosts." Kiyomi nodded supportively and said, "That's right. You shouldn't let mere superstition scare you, Misa-chan." Misa shot her an angry look.

"Misa is not scared! And for the record Misa doesn't believe in ghosts either, just shinigamis!" _Ah, yes. _Misa was a pre-teen occult freak, and believed in the some very strange things; just a month ago she had been into vampires, and now it was apparently death gods. _That girl really has some weird fancies._ "Shinigamis? Misa-chan, I keep telling you, you should focus on studying rather than ridiculous things like that. If you think you can survive without good education, then I think you're definitely letting your 'modelling career' go to your head." Kiyomi said, very rude. Misa was, of course, more than capable of defending herself.

"It's not just any fake 'modelling career'! Misa's manager says that her photos sell well and she will be a supermodel by the time she's twenty, which means Misa will have a successful career far before Kiyomi-chan will!" Misa spat, hitting a nerve with that 'successful' argument. If Kiyomi wanted anything - besides Light - it was success. "Your manager is obviously taking pity on you because of your age and lying." Kiyomi deadpanned.

"She did not!" Misa yelled. Light sighed, this time on the outside, and interrupted the girls' argument again.

By the end of the school day, Light had come no closer in finding out Ryuuzaki's real identity. As he walked out of the school building, supposedly going home, he summarized his thoughts: _First, he is not someone from the police. He said himself that he had worked WITH the police, rather than being a police officer. Also, dad would have probably said he was a police detective from another country than a 'foreign consultant'. So he must have been a private detective, or he could have worked for some organisation like FBI. That would explain the secrecy, actually, but- no- Surely dad wouldn't have said ANYTHING if he'd belonged to an organisation like that? Yeah. _

_Oh, right! Dad also said that Ryuuzaki himself didn't want people to know he was involved, wasn't it so? That means he's more likely to have been a private detective. But to have that kind of power over the police, from an entirely different country nonetheless, surely that would be easier with something behind you to back you up? Well, I can't be sure if I don't ask- Wait, wasn't I going home? _Light asked himself as he recognized the bulding in front of him.

The haunted house. Light had walked back to Ryuuzaki's old home without even noticing.

_I wonder if he's in?_ the boy thought, walking up to the house's front door. He tried it, and found it unlocked; apparently his classmates had run out without remembering to turn the key. (How they got the key in the first place was a mystery.) Light took a deep breath and pushed the door open. A streak of sunlight now illuminated the empty hallway. Quietly, as if afraid of his own voice, Light asked:

"Ryuuzaki?"

-.-.-.-.-

I'm sorry if it seems filler-ish... Or if you think I treated the girls badly. I assure you it was only intentional with Kiyomi-chan.

Reviewing is the best the of showing love, reproach, hate, or whatever it is this chapter made you feel :)


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